Between A Rock And A Hard Place

I moved to teach. I love the mentorship and the feeling of importance that comes with providing guidance to students. The politics and backbiting that comes with being a faculty member is awful. There is no team work. Everyone is there to establish and promote their own agendas. It is taking me a while to get used to this particular place. We have on member of the faculty who works to destroy everything, everything. I am between a rock and a hard place. I need to have a job. I need to provide for my family. I love working with the students. But I hate how the department is being conducted.  She wants to see the department go down because she can not boss people around. It is getting worse. I hope it will soon get better.

Over two years...

Oh boy, there have been so many changes since the last time I wrote anything on this blog. Well, I guess the first thing I should share is the fact that I moved. Not just around the corner or to another side of town or to a near by town in MS or TN.  No, I did not move to my beloved Nashville.  I moved across the country. I relocated my family to Grand Rapids, MI. Yes, I did it. I left everything that I could not sell. I took the bare minimum and left.  I could not take living in that area any more.Why, you ask. I am learning the true answer to that question in my bi-weekly sessions with my counselor. But my surface reasons are as follows. I left for a better career opportunity. I believed that my options in the Mid-South were limited. Those in the region did not value education at its core. The value for the children appears to be sports and entertainment. This is especially sad for the children who are in need of speech and language services, but especially difficult for a parent with a child who doesn't fit the mold. I wanted to give my children a better education. I also wanted to try working in the university setting. 

 I believe that if you cut the skin back and look under the surface you will find that I left because of the pressure. Yes, I felt pressure to have a "normal" kid.  I was miserable. I felt the pressure to prove that "nothing is wrong with me". I felt isolated, overworked, under appreciated and totally despised by my  friends and colleagues. My family is dysfunctional and have no desire to work on building relationships. I could not build a relationship with my sister. My aunt San died, My uncle Melvin died, then my grandmother died.  My dad is jealous and makes sure that I don't build a relationship with my mom. He is controlling. My mom and dad are hoarders and in a constant state of depression.  I didn't feel at home in my home. I had a baby with little financial support. All of the money we were working so hard to make went straight out of the door. I dissolved my precious business. That was a big blow.  I liked my co-workers at my SNF job, but I missed having my own practice. I never really settled into that job even after a year of employment, I never settled into that job. I made great mature relationships with my colleagues, but was unable to feel as if I was helping anyone. It was a forty-five minute drive there and back. I felt as if I was a part of a "system" of nothing. I just could not take it anymore. The lingering humiliation and isolation from the past continued to bother me. I gained every bit of my weight back. I don't exercise or eat well and now I have lost all hope for being healthy. I don't know if I can mentally get there. I lost faith in the church and church people. I got tired of trying to fit in even in the house of God. The fact that my high school and college peers have relationships that I still believe that I can't be a part of (real or not, that is my perception and perception is reality). The fact that I still feel like trash. Not one that will even be spoken too as if I did something negative to their relationship. I was the one that was lied to and humiliated and mistreated and seen as trash. Looked upon as not good enough.Yes, I took a job in a new state. I needed a new start, a different experience, A new life. I was tired of having to be strong and put up a "face" when I hurt so badly. I did want to have to walk into stores and see people from my past and have them "look" at me with that "look". This is not just in my head. It's a look. Maybe they are wondering if I am alright. But I want to not exist in that world. To top it all off, a friend came to me and asked if she could rent my home while I was away. We spent money that we did not have renovating what we could and she bailed on us the day before we left. Just left us high and dry. The bad part about it was that I felt obligated to tell her once me got to the new state. I told her that it was alright…well it ain't alright. You set us up. She knew from day one that she was not going to stay in my home. It was just her way of getting out of her apartment. I was used yet again. (Fred knew that she wasn't going to do it). I got tired to trying to prove to myself that I was okay. I got tired of trying to prove to them that I am okay.  I want to be a distant memory. Now the hard part is making that world a distant memory to me. I have been hurt. Here I am 8 months into a new place and I am still thinking of the harsh treatment that I felt at home. My counselor said that it is post traumatic stress. YOU THINK!